Nippon Paint partner Goh Cheng Liang is a Singaporean billionaire who owns the world’s largest tri-hulled superyacht – who is the owner of Wuthelam Holdings?
Thanks to a long career in paints and wall coatings, Goh Cheng Liang has helped countless people around the world decorate their homes. That started in 1949 with the creation of his own paint brand called Pigeon, before a partnership with Nippon Paint, one of the biggest paint brands in the world, set Goh on the way to amassing a fortune.
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Just this August, news of a merger between Goh’s Wuthelam Holdings and Nippon Paint made waves, bringing his overall stake in the brand to just a little below 60 per cent and leading to Forbes estimating his personal net worth at a colossal US$18.4 billion.
When World War II came, he was sent to Muar in what was then called Malaya, where he helped his brother-in-law sell fishing nets. He then returned to Singapore in 1943 to start his own business selling aerated water. That didn’t go well so he worked in a hardware store for the next four and a half years.
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His big break came in 1949 when he was able to buy some surplus stock at auction: rotting barrels of paint which, armed with his Chinese chemicals dictionary and knowledge from working in the hardware store, he started experimenting with. This was how his Pigeon Brand paint was born.
When the Korean war started in 1950, imports were restricted and his paint business found a ready market in Singapore. But he wasn’t satisfied and, as reported in Asia One, he went to learn the ins and outs of paint manufacturing technology in Denmark. It was after his thorough grounding in the technology and business that Nippon Paint came to him with a business proposal.
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A skilled businessman by this time, he was able to strike a deal that led to a Nippon mixing plant being sited in Singapore, and from the 1960s onwards, he dominated the field in Singapore and increasingly well beyond. He built the former shopping centre, Liang Court, and Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Today, his companies Wuthelam Holdings and Yenom Industries include a vast array of businesses, from retail and distribution, to golf courses, logistics, a Chinese mining company, marinas, hotels, and housing developments all over the world.
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Goh Cheng Liang launched the Pigeon Brand paint business with some cheap old stock, and grew it into a partnership with global giant Nippon Paints – of which he now holds 60 per cent